I don’t believe in luck or fate, but still, I wonder if the fact that Joss Whedon’s new TV series Dollhouse is premiering on Friday February 13 is a bad omen. Being on Fox doesn’t help either.

After the success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel, Whedon chose to write a science-fiction western Firefly. Wildly original, Firefly was set 500 years in the future. The premise was the two most important countries of the twentieth century, the USA and China, had become one, essentially super-corporation/world government with aspects of each (all of the curse words are in Mandarin). We are along in space with no aliens, and from the central planets, the outer worlds were colonized. Eventually a conflict develops over control and autonomy, then finally a war. Firefly is set sometime after the end of a war. I loved the show from the first, but was a little confused as it seemed to start in the middle. I was right. Fox began by airing the second episode. The 2-hour premiere was the final episode Fox aired. When I heard it would return in the New Year, I feared the worse. It never did. Apparently, Whedon had enough of a fan base to get a movie out of it.

So five years on, comes Dollhouse. Fox seems very keen, and Whedon trusts them, so here we go (the success of Dr. Horribleprobably didn’t hurt). The premise seems familiar enough. Eliza Dushka is Echo, a doll, whose personality is wiped so new memories and new ideas can be imprinted. Echo, however, begins to become self-aware. I’m up for it. The trailers look good, but I really hope that we can start to allow shows to develop before they are cancelled because of low numbers. So listen up Fox!